Simon Koolwijk

"How do habitants think about their own neighbourhood?" .  This was the theme about which 17 European videomakers developed a participatory video on how citizens think of their neighbourhood in Marseille and Aix en Provence.  The theme was interesting since Marseille will be the cultural European Capital in 2013 together with Kosice in Slovakia.   This Grundtvig funded training about Participatory Videomaking was organised by Têtes de l'Art in co-operation with Vidéos des Pays et des Quartiers (VDPQ) and Anonymal. from 5th - 10th March, 2012. See video:  Participatory video making in Marseille "This training was well organised. We learned how to plan a story" , shares one of the participants. "A good planning is essential. It helps to develop the story and it saves time for video editing" .  During the middle of the week interviews were conducted in specific urban areas of Marseille and Aix en Provence.  Two teams composed a 7-minute vide...

'Follow your heart, use your brains!'  This was the title of the video that opened the 25th Anniversary of the Nedworc Association on the 6th January 2012 in Amsterdam.  Nedworc is a network of development consultants in international development co-operation.  In October 2011  Erica Wortel ,  Joke Oranje and Simon Koolwijk developed in partnership with the Nedworc Anniversary committee the scenario for a video about the future development in the sector of international development co-operation.  The future of the sector,  developments on the labor market for consultants,  professional development and the future of the consultant were the main discussion threads for the development of the video. See video:  'Follow your heart, use your brains!' (in Dutch) The process of video making After developing the scenario   Erica Wortel and Joke Oranje selected member consultants with various backgrounds eg. livestock advisor, fo...

'The literacy rate has increased with 20 % in five years!' 'Fifty percent of the young people, who participated in reading and writing classes have acquired a job within a year after their studies!' 'The number of parents, who take on volunteer responsibilities in the Youth Centre have increased with 30 parents in two years!' These are just three examples of project indicators, which can be for mulated according to the Logical Framework (LF) principles for a youth development project in a big slum area in Kampala City, Uganda. However, most statistical indicators are difficult to measure. And what do statistics say about structural change? Mostly change can not be liniarly and logically explained...... Most structural change starts with behavioural change. Many times I hear people express after an inspirational workshop about social media; ' Tomorrow I am going to open an account at Twitter!', 'I will update my profile at Linkedin!...

"A whole new mind - Why right - brainers will rule the future" is a book which very much caught my inspiration. The book explains that in the coming decades the creative people will be the ones dominating and inspiring our work and economies. Daniel H. Pink explains that a lot of products and services have been standardized. Economies as China and India are much more competitative than our economies in producting standardized products. Therefore the challenge for European and American countries is to become innovative and creative. Daniel H. Pink recommends the six senses, which stimulate creative development: Design (make your product or service unique in its design) Story (connect a story to your product) Symphony (your service is like a music song, touching people at different stages) Empathy (replace yourself into the client and understand body language) Play (make people play and stimulate the inner child in them) Meaning (give meaning and understanding to y...

The last 4 weeks I have spended my time reading. Two books really caught my attention. The first one which gave me a lot of new inspiration is: "Creativiteit Hoe? Zo? - Igor Byttebier ." The book provides a number of brainstorm techniques on how to get new illunamous ideas. Normally with the traditional brainstorm methods you get the regular ideas, but with some exceptional techniques you can create new things, which you have not been thinking of before. Igor Byttebier clearifies from the beginning that creativity is not something, that is only given to a few number of people. It is something you can learn! The book gives some exercises which help you to develop these skills. Myself, I have started to look differently at pictures, photos and things in my surroundings. Last week I was looking at a picture with hot peppers! But when I looked it from a different perspective I saw women in red dresses dancing very passionately, or I saw that somebody had cut a white paper and ...

"This course was dynamic, informative, very useful and connected to our work! I can directly apply the tools in my work. I learned a lot from my colleagues. There was room for exchange and the input from the resource persons in the is course had an added value!" From 21 - 22 January 2009, Desk Officers from the development organisation ICCO participated in the second part of the training Capacity Development of Partner Organisations. This training which was facilitated by Simon Koolwijk , provided participants the space to present practical cases on how they had applied their lessons learned during the first training on 18 - 19 November 2008 . Cases where shared about capacity development of partner organisations in the Pacific, Asia and Africa. Desk officers had applied some of the organisational analysis tools to assess the capacities of their partners. Three resource persons; Hettie Walters, Angelica Senders (both from ICCO ) & Ben Haagsma ( IC Consult ) provided...

Elmine Wijnia , Joitske Hulsebosch , Sibrenne Wagenaar and Simon Koolwijk present themselves at the http://www.werkenmetweb2.wikispaces.com/ promotion video. Elmine Wijnia compiled a 4 minute video on what you can do with web2.0 tools and on how they can improve your work and give you the pleasure of a new adventure. For more information about our web 2.0 tools, contact us through http://www.werkenmetweb2.wikispaces.com/